offered for sale in Australia, it was repatriated by New Zealand as inalienable.19 Oldman wrote to Beasley in 1913 to warn him about Maori-style fl utes carved by Little, who seems to have liked making both kauau and putorino. There are examples of these in Chicago (fi g. 20), Vancouver, Oxford, Te Papa, the Musée du Quai Branly, perhaps Edinburgh, and probably elsewhere. The sole documented fake from Little’s hand is the lid of a Maori feather box (fi g. 21). He replaced it for the genuine one on a visit to the Wiltshire Archaeological Society’s Museum on Long Street in Devizes in 1915. 126 The caretaker, Mrs. Willis, noticed the substitution, but it took four days to track down the thief. Little was brought to trial and sentenced to six months’ hard labor. The original lid was never recovered, but the box and its substitute cover are now in the British Museum. The report of the proceedings in the Wiltshire Gazette for 25 March 1915 provides the only description we have of Little: “He wore rubbered boots, a sweater with a khaki-colored collar, and a heavy overcoat.” This probably was not the fi rst time Little had stolen. In 1913, six Maori greenstone artifacts in the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum were replaced by greenpainted plaster casts. Four other greenstone artifacts and a kotiate (hand club) were also stolen. The last may have been the one that Fuller received some days later. Little was apprehended but was released without sentence. The following year he was again arrested for being in possession of thirty to forty ancient fl ints that had been stolen from the Weston-super-Mare Museum, but again managed to escape conviction. Then there are the Maori bailers. When Little was convicted of stealing the feather box cover from Devizes, he confessed to have stolen a bailer from the Somerset County Museum in Taunton, which he said he had sold to Fuller. In Fuller’s correspondence with H. St. George Gray, curator, about the bailer, he writes that he had had suspicions about Little, who was unreliable and could not be believed. The museum tried to bring a case against Little, but it was dismissed for lack of proof. The FIG. 21: Box and cover. Box: Maori, New Zealand. Late 18th or early 19th century. Cover: Carved by Edward Little, England. C. 1915. Wood. L: 70 cm. British Museum, Oc1925,-.44 (box) and Oc1980,Q.1289 (lid). © The Trustees of the British Museum. The box was presented to the Devizes Museum as part of the T. B. Merriman bequest in 1869 and was sold to the British Museum in 1922, after the lid was stolen and replaced by Little, who faced charges and was sentenced to jail for the crime. FIG. 20 (right): Putorinotype fl ute in the Maori style, attributed to Edward Little. England. Early 20th century. Ex A. W. F. Fuller Collection. © Field Museum, Chicago, inv. 277604. Purchased by Fuller from Little in November 1913 for £4. FIG. 19 (left): Covered bowl in the Maori style, attributed to Edward Little by Roger Neich. England. Early 20th century. Wood. H: 33 cm. Ex Wellcome Institute. British Museum, Oc1981,Q.1392.a. © The Trustees of the British Museum. FEATURE
T76En_internet
To see the actual publication please follow the link above